The Diplomat opens with a bang — literally.

Minutes into the two-season series, a British aircraft carrier is bombed off the coast of Iran, killing dozens of sailors and triggering an international crisis.

Enter Kate Wyler (Keri Russell), a crisis-tested American diplomat yanked from a planned post in Kabul and reassigned, with no warning, as the US Ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Amid tense relations with Iran, which is suspected of the bombing, Kate must navigate Anglo-American relations, appease the volatile British Prime Minister Nicol Trowbridge (Rory Kinnear), and defuse the spiralling Iran-UK-US triangle without triggering war.

What starts as a whodunnit — who bombed the carrier, and why? — morphs into a political thriller with many unexpected twists and turns. The more Kate digs, the more she uncovers a conspiracy that goes far beyond Tehran.

At the same time, Kate, more comfortable operating in the shadows than wielding power directly, is battling the political ambitions of her husband Hal (Rufus Sewell), a former ambassador whose skills in manipulation and persuasion might outmatch even hers.

Russell is magnificent — as furious as she is brilliant, carrying the exhaustion of a woman whose intellect is constantly underestimated. Sewell plays Hal as half-Gatsby, half-scorched earth. Throughout the two seasons, the couple is locked in cold war.

By the end of an explosive first season, alliances are shattered, and a key assassination leaves viewers in freefall.

Season 2 picks up mid-sprint. The diplomatic crisis caused by the bombed aircraft carrier becomes personal in this season: careers are on the line, trust collapses within Kate’s inner circle, and war is back on the table.

What appealed to me the most was how The Diplomat never lets go of its whipcrack pacing. Between urgent phone calls and last-minute meetings with foreign dignitaries, there are moments of humour and raw vulnerability, too.

There are some implausible turns, but the show’s political and emotional realism holds steady: nobody is clean, and everybody lies — some better than others.

Ultimately, The Diplomat is not necessarily a show about saving the world, but rather, about surviving the performance of saving it.

And no one performs quite like Kate Wyler.

The Diplomat, available to stream on Netflix,has been recently renewed for a third and fourth season, scheduled for release later this year.